House speaker to White House: Release the Benghazi email

WASHINGTON - The Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives called on the White House on Thursday to release more information about last year's deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, as his party kept up its pressure on the Obama administration over the incident.

House Speaker John Boehner urged the Obama administration to release an email sent by a State Department official relaying that she had told the Libyan ambassador the attack was conducted by Islamist militants.

"The State Department would not allow our committees to keep copies of this email when it was reviewed. I would call on the president to order the State Department to release this email so the American people can see it," Boehner told a news conference.

Gregory Hicks, a former top U.S. diplomat in Libya, gave a dramatic account in a congressional hearing on Wednesday of the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

The Benghazi assault shadowed President Barack Obama as he campaigned for re-election in the autumn, as Republicans accused the administration of trying to cover up details of the attack out of concern it would make him appear weak on foreign policy.